Sapec compression technology, present at the BIT Broadcast workshops

The path to 4K is being much faster than expected a few years ago and, as has been evident in BIT Broadcast, Sapec is prepared for the new challenges of high-efficiency coding.

Sapec has been present at this edition of BIT Broadcast, and has done so with two presentations dedicated to 4K and the new HEVC coding standards. While on Tuesday Miguel Ángel Cristóbal, general director of Sapec, participated in the presentation dedicated to the documentary The passion of the Prado together with those responsible for RTVE, Abertis, Hispasat, Sony and Apuntolapospo to talk about the prosecution carried out; Yesterday it was Juan José Anaya, technical director of Sapec, within the talks organized by the ICT-Audiovisual Cluster of Madrid, who offered a magnificent interpretation of the current state of Ultra High Definition, detailing the new coding standards that support this resolution, the contribution and distribution systems necessary for this technology, as well as the evolution that the new coding formats are experiencing.

The presentation UHD-HEVC: Contribution and distribution, taught by Anaya, became an excellent presentation at the engineering level of the current state of UHD and the new coding standards (HEVC), and where Sapec is going in this regard.

The path to 4K is being much faster than expected a few years ago, especially taking into account the long path of HD, which had its first major blockbuster at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games.

Ultra High Definition is a differentiating format for the user and today, thanks to the new HEVC (ITU-H.265) coding standards, significant compression efficiencies are achieved that allow UHDTV to be ideal for capturing content and easy adaptation to HDTV for the broadcaster.

For Anaya, the H.264 coding standard was once a true revolution, and today this compression has been improved by around 50 percent, achieving very important efficiencies. Anaya highlighted that with HEVC between 15 and 20 Mbps an ultra high definition signal can be transmitted (it is possible to see this demonstration at the Abertis Telecom stand).

HEVC will therefore develop much faster than MPEG2/H.264, and will become the “enabler” of UHDTV technology, and at a professional level the contributions will use the new profiles defined for HEVC (4.2.2). To date, the tests carried out have been carried out in HEVC 4.2.0, but in the immediate future we will fully support HEVC 4.2.2 compression for the contribution links, although the final delivery may be carried out in HEVC 4.2.0 due to the demanding bit rate. In this way, the extended HEVC profiles (4:2:2) offer greater robustness in multigeneration than current standards. In the entire process of the television signal path, several jumps are made and it is necessary to encode and decode the signal, but maintaining the quality of the signal from the first steps of the chain.

4K at the same bitrate as HD

As a summary, Anaya highlighted that UHD signal contributions with the new H.265 format, 4:2:2 profile, could be made at bit rates equivalent to the current ones for HD with H.264.

If H264 contributions are usually made between 20 and 40 Mbps (1080i25) or 50 Mbps for 1080p50, a UHD 4Kp50 contribution in H264 4:2:2 requires a rate higher than 100 Mbps. Therefore, these extended HEVC profiles are an efficient solution for UHD-4K contributions. HEVC achieves a 50% reduction compared to H264 4:2:2, and therefore, contributions in HEVC-4K could be made at the same bit rate as current H264-HD services (at the same frame rate).”
Anaya finally highlighted that SAPEC has HEVC Coding and Decoding libraries, with which the 4Kp25 and 4Kp50 encodings of the different demonstrators have been carried out, and that alternatives are being analyzed to support UHD1 in this type of equipment.

Sapec activities in UHDTV and HEVC

Sapec has participated in all the UHDTV demonstrations that have been held so far in Spain: Mobile World Congress 2013 and 2014, DVB World Meeting 2013, Canal+ 4K day and in this edition of BIT Broadcast it has participated in the workshop on the documentary El Museo del Prado and its technology is present at the Abertis Telecom stand.

In all of them, the content shown on the screens has gone through coding done in Sapec. The first were made in H.264, but already in San Sebastián there was the new HEVC encoder/decoder, which was recently presented worldwide at the NAB in Las Vegas. SAPEC has great Know How in the entire coding part, and therefore is able to offer the client not only the added value of the product but also this know-how based on extensive experience.

According to Miguel Ángel Cristóbal, general director of Sapec, "we do not sell boxes, but we sell solutions. We like to find out where the equipment is going to be used, what environment it will have. Many clients, in fact, when they have to solve something, count on us to provide them with alternatives and solutions. From the point of view of pre-sales, we have a cache of engineers rather than pure sellers of boxes." Sapec also offers integration, engineering, start-up and support services, "one thing that characterizes us is that until now we have not said no to a possible adaptation or need. And being a small company allows us to be more dynamic, and that is what has allowed us to continue having clients such as Telefónica, TVE, the EBU and a long etcetera", comments Miguel Ángel Cristóbal.

Currently Sapec is participating in the EBU project: BeyondHD and in the European Eureka project on UHDTV: UHD4U. At the NAB in Las Vegas it presented its first Cod-Dec equipment in real time and in this Broadcast you can see its efficiency at the Abertis Telecom stand